You Only Live Twice: Financial Inflows and Growth in a Westward-Facing Ukraine

Yuriy Gorodnichenko and Maurice Obstfeld

No 21000, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: The monumental task of rebuilding postwar Ukraine requires early planning and identification of growth strategies. The earlier accession of Eastern European countries to the European Union and NATO offers a template that relies on massive foreign direct investment and public structural funds. This approach helps to raise incomes directly and can create a virtuous circle where capital deepening facilitates technological upgrades and repatriation of war refugees, which in turn stimulate more investment. We show theoretically that the government can refine this strategy by internalizing positive externalities from having a higher capital stock: Investment in physical capital relaxes borrowing constraints (thus allowing more capital inflows) and raises wages (thus encouraging more Ukrainian refugees to return home).

Keywords: Ukraine; Conflict; Reconstruction; Capital flows; Economic growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E2 F2 F5 P2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-01
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Working Paper: You only live twice: Financial inflows and growth in a westward-facing Ukraine (2026)
Working Paper: You Only Live Twice: Financial Inflows and Growth in a Westward-Facing Ukraine (2026)
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